Sunday, February 13, 2005

Mind, Soul and Rebirth

To me there seems to be sort of a grandfather's paradox in the concept of a soul, mind and rebirth.

The fact that all of us have a soul (and htat moves to another body) after death, is a central idea of Hinduism. From here the notion of karma arises. Instinctively, I would like to believe that there is a soul, and i probably do. That is what distinguishes us from machines and say plant life. We as humans can never create a being that can think. The fact that we (humans) can think, can be construed as evidence that we are more than just a living biomass of proteins and various other organic material. There is something more transcedental to a person, than what others can see or touch. This is in the end what distinguishes a person, from another person and makes everybody unique.

The paradox is that if we all live after dying in another body, then how come the population is increasing. Does that mean that souls are somehow being multiplied??/? Because say 10000 years ago there would have been just 5000 humans , and now there are around 10 billion. So either there is some reproduction of souls somewhere, or there are people who do not have a soul.............

Hindu literature says that being born a human is the ultimate gift, and that is solely governed by your karma i,e what u did in your previous life. If one was good in his deeds , then he is born a human next time around and if one does bad karma he/she can be born as an insect also. That could be used to explain the paradox in the sense that there are far more animals and insects doing good karma and dying... That is why they are born as humans. And since humans are the dominant species, other species are slowly decreasing in numbers. So there is a possibility, that sum total of all insects, humans, and animals maybe the same. Which is feasible, but it leaves us facing another question... Why is there crime in this world... Earth should have been a utopia, since other species are dying off and so only good karma is happenning. .......

Also one should muse on the fact that who or what did create all these souls??? Most of us refer to that person as God and the scientists sometimes end up calling it the all elusive God's particle, that kickstarted the universe. All i know that the fact that i am thinking of such abstract thoughts, there is more to me than just living flesh and bone... A testament to the fact that there is some metaphysical thing as the soul. I just do not have all the answers right now.